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Ronan Manly is a precious metals analyst with BullionStar whose blogs
often cover current themes including what's going on in the
London gold market and the gold activities of central banks.
Ronan Manly
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As a former Banque de France central banker joins the board of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) as an “Independent” director, replacing a former New York Federal Reserve central banker who also served on the same board as an “Independent” director, we must ask ourselves why have these central bankers so much interest in gold and the LBMA.
Particularly as the... Continue Reading 
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The unprecedented shock which London and New York gold markets experienced beginning 23-24 March left a lot of fallout in its wake, from bullion banks scrambling to secure physical gold to send to New York, to deteriorating liquidity in both the COMEX and London markets.
Yet three months on from the detonation whose blast waves were felt on both sides of the Atlantic, the... Continue Reading
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There is something broken in the London gold market and the evidence points back to HSBC, both in physical and paper gold. During April, HSBC began turning to the Bank of England gold vaults to source at least 45 tonnes of gold for the world’s largest gold-backed ETF, the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD). Did HSBC run out of gold in its own secretive London vault?
Now it emerges that... Continue Reading
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While media focus has recently been on the current gold price dislocation between London spot and COMEX New York futures, there is another persistently large discount that so far has evaded the spotlight. That is the twice daily LBMA Gold Price benchmark.
By ignoring the much higher COMEX gold futures prices while setting the LBMA Gold Price auction starting price, the auction... Continue Reading
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The US Mint has just implemented an indefinite shutdown to its West Point Mint facility due to a surge in coronavirus cases in Orange County New York where the West Point Mint is located.
As the only production facility for the famous American gold Eagles and American gold Buffalo bullion coins, the West Point shutdown puts a further strain on an already constrained supply... Continue Reading
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A newly discovered document from COMEX operator CME to the CFTC contains a full-scale admission that much of the ‘eligible gold inventory’ in COMEX New York vaults is held by long-term holders and cannot be included in deliverable supply.
The COMEX concedes that eligible gold should therefore have a 50% haircut applied. With this bombshell admission, it means there is far... Continue Reading
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As the saga of the large price differential continues to persist between COMEX gold futures prices and London gold spot prices, it is obvious that all is not well with the bullion banks in the paper gold markets.
And this is despite statements galore from the LBMA and COMEX and the launch of a new gold futures contract. The underlying problem seems to be the LBMA gold market... Continue Reading
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In the space of a week, the bullion bank dominated LBMA and CME(COMEX) in an air of panic, have issued not one, but two rushed out statements to try to placate the global gold market.
In the modern gold market this is unprecedented. While LBMA-CME claim that physical gold stocks in London and New York are at healthy levels, the reality is far more concerning. Continue Reading
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As the LBMA and CME scramble to keep the paper gold show on the road and monopolise gold price discovery, they have now launched a new gold futures contract which is deliverable using 400 oz gold bars.
But according to the COMEX gold vault inventory report, there are no 400 oz gold bars in any of the COMEX approved vaults in New York. Is this yet again a giant smokescreen by... Continue Reading
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With extreme demand and supply shortages in the physical gold market, it was only a matter of time before the paper gold markets in London and New York would come under strain. That time is now.
With the spot price of gold lagging the price of COMEX gold futures for the third day running, the LBMA is now colluding with the COMEX on bailing out bullion banks. But who is bailing... Continue Reading
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Unprecedented demand for physical precious metals. Unprecedented supply chain delays in the precious metals supply chain. Real and present disconnects between the physical gold price and the prices set by COMEX/LBMA.
In theory you would think that this is all great material for reporters covering the latest developments in the physical gold market in Asia. Maybe for some, but... Continue Reading
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The turmoil engulfing financial markets is unprecedented in its breath and intensity. You might call it a perfect storm. In such an environment, no asset class has been immune. But will gold be the last man standing? Continue Reading
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As global stock markets reeled last week on continued newsflow around the coronavirus, the US dollar gold price made a seven-year high early in the week, only to fall sharply on Friday.
But with this ‘gold price’ derived on the COMEX gold futures market, it is detached from the reality of the current strong demand that BullionStar is seeing for physical gold. Continue Reading
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From quarantined cities to lower consumer demand, from reduced flight traffic to closed frontiers and boarders, the economic shock to the domestic Chinese gold market caused by the outbreak of the coronavirus should not be underestimated.
While we can't examine much live data from the Chinese gold market right now, we can review Chinese gold market activity up to the end of... Continue Reading
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In a brazen attack on precious metals and economic freedom, the German government has just introduced draconian new rules on buying precious metals.
Brought in with zero evidence under the guise of money laundering prevention, short term it created panic gold buying by Germany’s population but long term it's a continuation of the all too familiar statist war against gold and... Continue Reading
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This week the LBMA in London claims that a record 8,228 tonnes of gold is held in the London vaults, vaults which include those at the Bank of England and the commercial vaults of such bullion banks as JP Morgan and HSBC.
But beyond the headline figure, how much of this gold is available to underpin the gargantuan daily trading volumes of the London gold market? Very little as... Continue Reading
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In a quantum leap for an investment bank to make, Dutch bank ABN AMRO has just gone on record questioning if a world with two gold prices would be better, one price that would reflect trading of real physical gold, and the other which would represent paper and synthetic gold products.
Although a welcome step from the Dutch bank, it fails to acknowledge the structural forces... Continue Reading
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Gold is and always has been universal money that can be used anywhere and is accepted everywhere. The world’s elite military detachments know this, which is why they issue their troops and pilots with gold coins and other gold bullion items for use as emergency money when they go behind enemy lines. Continue Reading
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The Polish central bank has just succeeded in extracting 100 tonnes of its gold from the Bank of England in London, and this gold now rests safely back in Poland in the vaults of the National Bank of Poland.
Moving 100 tonnes of gold - 8000 central bank gold bars - Poland’s gold repatriation operation involved top secret motorcades, elite police escorts, jumbo jet air... Continue Reading
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Ever been confused between the COMEX ‘registered’ and ‘eligible’ gold categories on the COMEX New York gold vault reports? You wouldn’t be the first. But now the CME has made it even more complex by introducing a new ‘pledged gold’ category representing COMEX registered gold that has been used as collateral.
But with pledged gold unable to be used for gold futures... Continue Reading
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After announcing gold reserve purchases for ten straight months between December 2018 and September 2019, the Chinese central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has now paused gold buying for October, at least according to latest figures.
But what to make of Chinese official gold buying communication in general? It’s instructive to look at China’s stop-start gold... Continue Reading
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History is replete with examples of gold being the ultimate asset in times of crisis and emergency, where time and time again, gold comes to the rescue and provides its holders with choice and freedom.
These crisis situations range from fiat currencies collapses, to gold buying safe passage across international borders, from periods in which gold can rescue an entire nation, to... Continue Reading
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In a development whose impact is still unclear, the world’s largest gold derivatives trading venue, the US COMEX, and the world’s largest physical gold trading exchange, the Chinese SGE, have just jointly launched gold derivatives contracts, potentially binding each other into a price feedback loop.
Could this be a case of the massively influential COMEX gold trading now... Continue Reading
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The LBMA claims to be the global authority for precious metals, but it is an organization stacked full of bullion banks which trade gigantic volumes of synthetic paper promises, and an organization which does nothing to champion the interests of savers and investors in physical precious metals.
Founded by a group of bullion banks and the Bank of England, the LBMA and its... Continue Reading
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Earlier this week BullionStar broke the news that the JP Morgan head of precious metals trading, Michael Nowak, who is at the center of the DoJ’s criminal investigation into precious metals market manipulation, was also a current board member of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA).
Following this revelation, we also talked to the Financial Times on Thursday, which... Continue Reading
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Michael Nowak, JP Morgan Chase managing director and Board member of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) has just been charged by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) with manipulating the prices of precious metals-futures contracts over an 8 year period.
Nowak sits on the LBMA Board along with LBMA chairman Paul Fisher, LBMA CEO Ruth Crowell, and LBMA General Counsel... Continue Reading
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This month marks the centenary of the London Gold Fixing, with events at both Rothschild’s headquarters in the City of London and at the neighboring Bank of England.
Billed as a momentous occasion by the bullion bank-controlled London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), the celebrations gloss over and conveniently forget to mention that the history of the London Gold Fixing is... Continue Reading
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Cross-border gold flows into the world’s largest gold market are now available monthly following a recent move by Chinese customs authorities to publish gold imports and exports in an online database.
While China imported 994 tonnes of gold over the first seven months of 2018, the corresponding import figure for 2019 is a lot lower. But why is this? Is it a move by the... Continue Reading
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The US Federal Reserve has just cut it’s federal funds rate by 0.25%, the first time it has done so in over 10 years.
This change in direction by the central bank of the world’s biggest economy has more to it than the Fed board will say, and the US now rejoins the global central bank game of currency debasement and QE to infinity.
In this environment, gold tends... Continue Reading
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After 20 years and three renewals, the signatories to the Central Bank Gold Agreement (CBGA), a cartel like syndicate of central banks in Europe, have just announced that they will not be renewing the Agreement when it expires this coming September.
While the real purpose of the CBGA was always different to its stated purpose, it appears likely that the Agreement while it ran... Continue Reading
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In addition to commercial bank manipulation of gold and silver futures prices and central bank manipulation of gold by policy, there is arguably another form of manipulation in the precious metals markets which is far more influential in subduing price discovery.
This is the manipulation embedded into the very structure of modern financialized commodities markets, which trade... Continue Reading
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In a stunning development which is yet to be fully digested by the gold market, the central bank of Poland announced last Friday that it has purchased 100 tonnes of gold so far this year, boosting its gold reserves to 228.6 tonnes.
While all the Polish gold is still held at the Bank of England in London, this is about to change, and the Poles plan to imminently repatriate... Continue Reading
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At a recent conference in Tokyo on the Future of Asia, Malaysia’s perennial prime minister Mahathir called for a pan-Asian gold-backed currency that could be used in international trade settlement.
While an interesting proposal, Mahathir’s idea is a repackaged version of his gold dinar scheme which never really got off the ground.
Asia has the ability to shift to... Continue Reading
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With the fourth Central Bank Gold Agreement (CBGA) about to expire in September, a relevant question now is will there be a fifth CBGA?
Devised by a cartel of western central banks, the first two CBGAs achieved what they had intended to i.e. provide cover over 1999 - 2008 to close off gold sales and loans that had taken place years before.
And as China, Russia and... Continue Reading
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The gold price is now making new multi-year and all time highs in many of the world’s most important and most liquid fiat currencies, including the commodity currencies of the Canadian dollar and Australian dollar, and other major currencies such as the Swedish Krona, Singapore dollar, British pound and Euro.
A new multi-year high in US dollar gold is also a possibility right... Continue Reading
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In the midst of non-stop headlines about the US Chinese trade war and its associated tariffs, one sector of the Chinese economy which is business as usual is the Chinese gold market.
From metrics of SGE gold withdrawals to central bank gold purchases, from Chinese gold imports to Chinese gold mining, the world’s biggest gold market continues to siphon off huge quantities of... Continue Reading
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In a move that is anything but ‘leveling the playing field’ in the London bullion market, the LBMA has now moved to charging US$ 1500 per month for even a glimpse into the shadowy trading data of the opaque bullion banks in London.
Going completely against the spirit of the UK Fair and Efficient Markets Review, while maintaining the fiction of increased transparency, the... Continue Reading
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On its sporadic visits to the US Mint’s bullion depository at West Point, New York, the attending media only ever sees a ‘working vault’ of about 3000 gold bars used as input into the Mint’s bullion coin minting programs.
This is despite the West Point Mint claiming to store 54 million ounces (135,000 gold bars) across 11 ‘deep storage’... Continue Reading
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With news that the French Bank, SocGen, has exited from market making in the London gold and silver markets, does this signal something amiss and the beginnings of a new wave of defections, as further bullion banks run for the exits?
This latest departure by SocGen now means that four of the five members of the former infamous Gold Fixing auctions in London have now run into... Continue Reading
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A new survey in Germany finds that the German public holds over 8900 tonnes of gold, with a majority of this gold held in the form of investment gold bars and gold coins.
This is quite a staggering number and is more than 2.6 times the amount of gold held by Germany’s central bank, the Bundesbank.
German citizens hold gold as a form of wealth preservation and as a... Continue Reading
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As China and Russia continue to make headlines with their ongoing and long-term accumulation of strategic gold reserves, in Europe central banks and their governments are increasingly coming into conflict on the issues of gold ownership and control of national gold reserves.
Two prime examples in this space right now are the gold repatriation legislation making its way... Continue Reading
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With over 60 tonnes of gold stored at the Bank of England in London, moves are now afoot in the Romanian Parliament to force Romania’s central bank to repatriate most of this gold back from London to Bucharest.
If this move is successful, Romania will join the growing list of European nations, such as neighbouring Hungary and Austria, that choose to store their gold, not at... Continue Reading
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Following recent BullionStar coverage of the gold reserves of the Australian central bank claimed to be stored at the Bank of England, Australia’s gold continues to hit the headlines as a group of Aussie politicians host a public hearing quizzing the central bank heads about this very gold.
Unfortunately for the Australian population, due to what looks like a whitewash with a... Continue Reading
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Recently, news network RT.com asked for BullionStar's comments on the question of the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) gold reserves supposedly stored at the Bank of England's gold vaults in London.
Using some of these comments, RT has now published an article on the topic on its English language news website.
Since the full set of RT questions and BullionStar's... Continue Reading
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Italy claims to be the third largest sovereign gold holder in the world, with more than 2450 tonnes of monetary gold holdings.
As populist political parties in Italy come to the fore, the question of whether to harness some of Italy's gold through gold sales has recently been raised.
But who actually owns the Italian gold? Italy's central bank, the Bank of Italy, says... Continue Reading
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It is now an established fact that the Bank of England has been stalling for months in its refusal to allow stored gold to be withdrawn from London by the central bank of Venezuela.
Taking its orders from the UK and US governments, the reputation of the Bank of England as a safe and secure location for the gold bars of the world’s central banks looks now to have been... Continue Reading
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After a two year silence, the Chinese central bank has come back to the table with an announcement that it purchased 10 tonnes of gold in December 2018. The last time it claims to have bought gold was in October 2016.
To an already skeptical audience, it is difficult to believe that the Chinese were not buying gold all through 2017 and 2018. Especially since their powerful... Continue Reading
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The Russian central bank has bought so much gold this year that its purchases now exceed the amount of gold mined in Russia during 2018.
But with a policy of buying domestic gold mining output, the central bank will now need to look further afield to fulfill its gold reserve purchase requirements.
As existing agents of the central bank, the large Russian commercial... Continue Reading
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As one of the world’s largest custodians of central bank gold, the Bank of England is attracting unwanted attention in a bizarre saga involving 14 tonnes of Venezuela’s gold.
A whole cast of colorful characters has recently emerged on both sides, those wanting the gold to be returned and those wanting the gold to be confiscated. Continue Reading
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The gold lending market is arguably the most secretive and opaque market in the world with little known about its workings and less about its transactions and outstanding gold lending positions.
While London is the core hub for this secretive market, one of the giants of bullion banking, JP Morgan, has recently confirmed that it is facilitating central bank gold lending in... Continue Reading
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